


Fireflicker

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Series: The Winged Jedi [19]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Worship, F/M, Female Obi-Wan Kenobi, Forbidden Love, Nudity, Scars, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-04 02:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17296376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: The scene she returns home to is something she will treasure forever, no matter how many times it happens.





	Fireflicker

It was late into the night when her fighter landed down, returned from Coruscant. The halls of the base were quiet and the world seemed at rest. The bustling landscape of Coruscant never changed, but she had become just distant enough from that constant noise to begin to miss the quiet. 

She was quick and stepped lightly as she walked the halls, her vision adjusted to the dark. No due sense in waking anyone. 

The door to her room was open, much as she had expected. She stepped inside and began to shed her garments, just down to her silk underrobe before the serenity was disturbed. 

"Obi-Wan?" He mumbled. 

"Yes, darling." She sat on the bed next to him. "I'm here."

"Glad you're back." He managed, reaching up to brush her cheek and curl some hair around his fingers before falling back asleep. 

She couldn't help her smile. He'd always been caring and considerate, long before this attraction between them began, but it had changed once they'd gotten together. He became soft, understanding, attentive. 

He never overstepped lines, pushed for more than she offered him, sometimes offered himself instead. It might have been because he hadn't known these lines existed, that he just did what he thought was right. His initial fear of rejection and court martial didn't seem to last too long. 

Sitting next to him on the bed, she stroked over the scar on his face, letting her aura expand and envelop him. She held him close, wrapping him in all the love and gentility she was not always permitted to show, that she might not have the capacity to explain. In his dreams, he soaked it up, taking all she would give him and cloistering it in his heart, so close and oh so dear. His own energies flared back, his unlimited and eternal devotion rushing up to meet hers, so eager to reinforce what he always told her. 

 _Ob'ika_ , his mind called,  _cyare. Come to me._

She laid down next to him, resting her head on his chest. Her wing and arm blanketed him, one of her legs tangling with his through the bedding. His arm wrapped around her shoulder, under the other wing, and crept into her hair. 

Time together had been rare before. So, so rare. And his life was to be brief. She had been hesitant in the war. She wasn't anymore. 

* * *

Av'ale, the planet of summertime dreams. It was luscious and beautiful, with high mountains and long valleys, always filled with beautiful flowers and the smells of ripe fruits. Serene and plentiful, a neutral world made for vacationers. The Jedi had a small monastery there, built as a retreat for the aged and dying, unable to fulfil their duties any longer or the young and injured, wounded and in need of long-term recovery space. 

This is where Cody had been tasked to bring her after she caught the drop ships. 

They had saved Av'ale from the Separatist blockade, and killed off the men sent to coerce the Prime Minister into handing over control of the planet. As expected, the Seps hadn't gone quietly, and had shot down four incoming dropships. She'd managed to save them, eighty men and Commander Tano, and land them with only one pilot casualty (a broken arm and dislocated shoulder). No deaths, and a successful mission - something that happened only rarely. 

But Obi-Wan had paid dearly for it. Her claws - which she had used to grab hold of the ships as they fell - had nearly been torn out of her fingers. As if the torn ligaments and dislocated joints in her hands weren't enough, her back muscles had been pulled and torn under the strain. She managed this feat three times to completion before her body gave out on the fourth and she fell the remaining fifty meters to land, landing in a crumpled heap some ten meters away from the downed ship and entirely unresponsive. 

Tano had done as much as she could to stabilize her, but it was beyond her skill. 

Skywalker had reached them next, with Helix and Kix in tow. Then, once Cody had arrived, he was given the authority to take her to the monastery. 

She didn't remember much of the event, save the searing agony every movement caused her. 

Once she was conscious, she argued with General Windu for six hours over her recovery. 

"Give them rest." She had insisted. "Give command of the main force of the 212th to Anakin if they're that desperately needed, but Ghost Company has been on the front with me, uninterrupted, for fourteen months."

"It's a waste of a company to leave them behind when they're fully functional."

She hissed as her muscles pulled, but she sat up against Helix's worried protests. "Even enhanced as they are, you can't expect them to do this day in and day out without any reprieve. You don't expect it of yourself, augmented by the Force."

Windu looked for a long moment as if he was going to spit fire. 

"Otherwise, I will need a guard, enough to secure the compound while a High Jedi General recovers, unfit for combat." She raised a challenging eyebrow. 

"You're going to be persistent about this."

"I am." Her voice softened. "Mace, I am more or less running this army. These men dog my steps, ragged and without thanks. Give them this, for me."

"Fine. Ghost Company can remain. The rest of the 212th will be redeployed with Skywalker. I expect Commander Cody will have no issues keeping up with his Field Marshall duties while on leave?" 

"Dispatches will remain consistent." She modified. She didn't want Cody bogged down with his normal tactical worries and paperwork - he needed rest just as much as she did. 

Windu frowned, but nodded. "Don't make me regret this, Kenobi."

"What more can you do to me, Master?" She held up her hands, bruised black and swollen to immobility. 

He winced. "May the Force be with you."

"And you, Master."

As soon as Crys ended the holocall, she began to shake. 

"Would you mind helping me lay back down?" She asked Helix sheepishly. The medic frowned, upset, but did as she asked and helped her down. She let out an audible sigh of relief once she was resting again, the other brothers in the room adjusting her wings. "Thank you."

"You're going to kill yourself." Helix said, doing his best impression of an upset mother. 

"Where do you think Skywalker gets it from?" Longshot commented, only to be glared down. 

"Perhaps." She admitted. "But it's my duty to protect and defend. If I can save someone, I should."

"You're so much more important than some clones." Helix argued. "Commander Tano you could have saved by flying into the ship. Ace was telling you to."

"You are not expendable." She returned, suddenly fierce and sharp. "You are not a number. You are not droids, to be manufactured and disposed of for an updated model. You are people, a race and culture all your own. The galaxy might see identical faces, but I don't. You're alive, same as I am. My life is not worth more than yours."

"Yes, it is!" Helix snapped back, firmly irritated. "Without you, the war falls apart! We get shipped off to a general who doesn't care whether we live or die! Who wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire. You, alone, are what keeps most of these men fighting!"

She shrunk back from him, visibly taken aback. The room was silent in the wake of his outburst, and once it sunk in on him what he'd said, he looked torn between holding his ground and jumping out a window to escape scrutiny. 

"I love you." She said, finally. Cody, standing at the head of her bed, laid a hand on her shoulder. "I love you all. Ghost Company is my company, the men who have seen hell and would follow me into it again without being asked. I love you like I love Anakin and Ahsoka. I love you. I love you collectively and individually. I love you more than I can explain. I would and will die for any of you, as you would for me. You can't expect me to stand idle while my  _family_ is in jeopardy. I can't do it. I love you too much."

Helix dropped his head, ducking into his palms to hide the tears. Many of the men standing around her couldn't meet her gaze. Only Cody, her dear Cody, stroked down her hair with the most heartbreaking smile. 

"I love you too." Helix managed, collapsing into the chair next to her bed, still hiding in his hands. "That's why I care."

"I know." She reached out and stroked his cheek. "You can't fault me for doing the same. You wouldn't be here to yell at me if I hadn't saved those ships."

He gave a set laugh. "Yeah, I guess not."

"I'll be able to move about soon. Walk, anyway." She amended for Helix's sake. "Av'ale is beautiful, and I think we need some time together, as people, not as General and Company."

"No patrols?" Crys joked. 

She smirked. "Absolutely not. There's Jedi in this monastery well enough to take care of themselves."

 | | |

Brothers hovered in her room enough that they moved her to a living wing. The orderlies came around occasionally, but Helix took primary care of her. Sawbones took night watch for the other medic, significantly more calm about the whole ordeal. 

It took two weeks before the bruising and swelling in her arms and back were low enough for her to stand and walk on her own. During that time, only Cody, Helix and Sawbones were allowed to see her disrobed. Despite the protest of the orderlies to remain in lose robes, she insisted on wearing the standard high-necked blacks. Cody had hushed his brothers at the time, but insisted to her later that they needed to be present whenever she was required to stand, such as moving to bathe. 

"By the mercy of the Force." Helix swore when Cody helped her out of the blacks. "What happened to you? Where did all this come from?"

"They're burn scars." Sawbones commented, looking her over critically. "Old, too. Must have been pretty bad to still be black and not white."

"I was enslaved on a mining asteroid." She replied, somewhat dismissive. "They generally are received poorly."

"Oh, I'm not upset." Sawbones said. "I'm angry."

"Even for slavers, what they've done to you is atrocious!" Helix burst out. "Look at the ring around your throat! Even if they didn't care about your health, they should at least want to keep you alive!"

"I was escaping." She said, managing the tub with Cody's help. "My pain resistance is high, so they had difficulty subduing me. I was quite far when they found me."

Cody cast them a warning look. This was a display of trust, and she didn't need any more strain with their probing questions. 

"Do they impede you at all?"

"No. Not anymore. They didn't get around to my back, or else it might be different." She said, watching Cody as he rinsed her down.

"I'm going to let you soak here for a minute, okay?" The Commander asked. 

"Of course."

She relaxed into the tub and Cody gestured for the medics to follow him outside. The bathroom was separated from the main space by a small secondary room that held hung up robes and housewear. 

"How long have you known?" Helix demanded. 

"A year or so after I became the Field Marshall and her commander. I walked in on her changing to deliver a report."

"How long have you been intimate?" Sawbones' gaze brooked no argument -  he knew. 

"Not as long as I've known about the scarring."

"That's not a timeframe."

Cody scowled. "You don't need one."

"Cody, this is serious."

"I'm aware." He levelled them with his gaze. "This is about her health, not our relationship. Focus."

"The two are intertwined, Commander." Helix argued. "If you're engaged sexually, there's a whole host of issues-"

"Focus." Cody barked, more harsh. "You're being trusted with two very sensitive secrets. I can't look after her health and we're not always going to be within reach of a Jedi medical facility. Her scarring is just as extensive and rough as it looks and it does cause her complications. With her wings, she's too large to fit in a standard bacta tank. Even on Coruscant, they don't have one large enough to accommodate her."

"Oh." The two said together. Even the Jedi struggled to care for her properly. "What about her internals? What's her health history?"

"Most of the scars visible on her are burns. Some were very deliberate lacerations, notably on her thighs, that have left scar tissue in the muscle. I also understand that she had a very serious accident a decade ago where she crushed her wings and broke many of her bones. She was in recovery for the better part of a year."

"Kark." Sawbones muttered. Kenobi healed exceptionally fast - likely due to the still feral nature of her species and their mammalian lineage - so for her to be down so for long . . . Cody was underselling the damage she'd actually done.

"Her entire body's been compromised before, then." Helix felt like he needed to sit down. "What did she do that managed that much damage?"

"She fell."

Sawbones snorted. "What, over a caf table?"

"Off a cliff into the former bed of an ocean." Cody ran a hand over his face. "I'm sure she'd be more than willing to recount her details to you once she's better, but I need you to understand the gravity of what I'm asking you to do."

"What  _do_ you want us to do?"

"When she requires medical care beyond the reach of Jedi healers, I want you to shield her from the brothers, to keep them from seeing the scarring and take care of her injuries a discreetly as you can."

Helix sighed. "I understand, Sir."

"So do I." Sawbones agreed.

Cody paused then, looking less stern and more beaten down. "From one brother to another, can I ask you both another favour?"

"What is it?"

"Keep my relationship with the General to yourselves." He looked away. "It would get her thrown out of the Order."

They both softened. Kenobi might get excommunicated for her secret, but they both knew what would be in store for Cody. The man would be sent back to Kamino and  _recycled_. His decommissioning would see him blank-eyed and silent, sweeping floors or washing dishes. With Kenobi gone, there would be no one to vouch for him, to save him from that fate. They both knew that Cody knew it too.

"I will." Sawbones replied just as softly. 

"Of course." Helix pulled Cody into a hug. "Of course."

Cody relaxed into his hold, thankful and relieved. What he'd done was grounds not just for decommission, but death. He knew the Kaminoans would never risk someone like Kenobi coming for him only to find him a vegetable unable to recognize her face, let alone say her name. 

"I'm going to go check up on her." Sawbones said. 

"Thank you."

"You're my brother, Cody. And she's my family."

* * *

The moonlight on Naboo was clear and bright, shining down into their room and casting her pale skin in a clean white glow. It darkened the shade of her hair and her wings, but illuminated her eyes. They tracked him from the darkness like gemstones, shifting and shimmering. 

"It's like Av'ale." She murmured into the night, as though she could read his mind. 

He smiled, his fingertips tracing the sharp, hard paths cut raggedly into her skin. She didn't move as he explored, each time like the first time, walking the well-worn roads of her body. They weren't as jagged as when he'd first seen them, pulling down the long sleeves of the beige robes she no longer wore. She'd ducked her head as if she was ashamed of them. Not long after, he got his own face gouged open. In the medical bay, when she'd come to visit him, he joked that he'd catch up to her eventually. She had stroked the skin next to the stitches and smiled. 

_"I think I'll have to compete extra hard for the gold, then."_

He leaned down, kissing a particularly nasty one - made with a durasteel knife, by the puckered way it healed - with infinite tenderness. He dropped his palms to her thighs, taking his time to appreciate the strength and beauty in the Jedi,  _his_ Jedi. Her life was worked into her flesh, hardship and fire and pain, but most of her was soft, supple skin and vibrant colour. She was strong and fierce, but never once turned that against the men in her care. She was insular but protective, willing to open her arms, wings and heart to anyone in need of them, no matter her own cost. She never asked for the same in return, hiding the strain and the agony. 

 _Open to me_. She brushed along his mind, cool and soothing like an ocean breeze. He did as she asked, relaxing his body and clearing his head, leaning into the hand cupping his cheek.

She poured in, smooth and easy as water from one canteen to another, filling all the space in his head and his heart that belonged just to her. She tugged him loose, mixing them together. The only thing separating them was their bodies, but even that was superficial. 

_Obi-Wan . . ._

_I'm right here._

He kissed up her abdomen, light, feathering touches that sent sparks skittering across his skin. His senses always felt magnified when they were like this, hyper-aware of his body and hers. It was rare, usually being in close proximity to other Force users or in the middle of a warzone. 

As he moved up, her hands moved down, tracing over the curve of his neck, then the angles of his shoulders. She thumbed the mating scar at the juncture with reverence - an act of violence committed in a dedication to love, a show of faith unlike any other and one she was ever grateful for. It always made him shiver and sigh, pressing closer. He continued upwards, eyes locked with hers, until they were sharing air, as they shared everything else. 

 _I love you. More than I've ever loved anyone. Cody, my beautiful_ Kote _._

He loved it when she used his Mando'a name. She made him feel like he'd achieved it, fulfilled his self-given prophecy.

Her hands flattened against him, sliding down the slope of his back. The calluses from her 'saber and the rough texture of old wounds marked her hands, hewn out of the galaxy's toughest stone. Everything about her was strong and wild, dangerous and vibrant. She was a star all her own; beautiful at a distance, deadly in proximity and capable of giving and taking life. To live with her was to burn, to live without her was to perish. Cody was a good soldier, a good clone - he lived and breathed fire and chaos. His love for her was only natural. She was everything he'd ever needed, beknownst to him or not. 

He was her moon, a little orbiting thing she'd picked of many. She saw the marked and tough surface, saw through him to the metal interior, to the precious gleam of jewels he was unaware of. She adored him, a pebble in the midst of pebbles, and tugged him closer in her undeniable gravity. He was content to melt in her heat. Everything beautiful and precious about him belonged to her, even before she'd fallen in love with him. 

On nights like this, and Av'ale, they touched and held. Tonight, she lay underneath him, wings spread in a glorious hail, her hair a haze of copper about her shoulders. All her scars on display, all her broken splendour laid bare, all of herself given over to his command. 

Above her, with him in her body and her in his mind, he tried his best to tell her all of that.

"I love you." He panted into her ear, her own breaths echoing in his head. "I love you, Obi-Wan."

"I love you, Cody." She replied, just as desperate. "I love you so much. Too much."

"There is no such thing."

They take the night together, only sliding out of each other when the cool light of dawn dawn begins to filter in. 

She cupped his face, just before they leave to join the men. "I love you."

He kissed the cloth covered palm. "I love you more."

* * *

Across the galaxy, Anakin begins to dream. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "Cody" is a transposition to Basic from Mando'a. Cody's actual self-given name is Kote [Koh-TAY], which means "Glory".


End file.
